


Offensive Yosak

by darkrogue1 (Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse)



Category: Kyou Kara Maou!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-02
Updated: 2006-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-29 12:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7684132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Haydee_Lohdisse/pseuds/darkrogue1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuuri is in Shinmakoku, shortly after coming back from a trip to the Earth. He’s been in class over there, and in English Literature, they studied "Spring offensive". As everyone is otherwise busy, he thinks about it, applies the poet’s thought to the last war, and asks Yosak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Offensive Yosak

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Spring Offensive by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) (He’s been dead for more than 70 years, so I can freely quote his works here and without any worries ^^). I studied it at school back when I was 16, in preparation for the HSC... (which I didn’t pass by the way ^^) but I still remember it by heart, and one day, while walking to go to work, I spoke it aloud and mispronounced the last sentence, which is why I thought about kkm.
> 
> In this, I make Yuuri change the last verse, but if you don’t like that, you could always imagine that Yosak was thinking about something else and heard it wrong. (I know of someone who wouldn’t say it’s that far fetched…)
> 
> Beta-read by [](http://slytherisa.livejournal.com/profile)[**slytherisa**](http://slytherisa.livejournal.com/). Thanks a lot ! 

It was spring, it was warm, but Yuuri was just staring into empty space through the window. He had come back from Earth some hours earlier, and everyone seemed to be busy today… but that did not include him. He sighed, and as he watched the breeze pass through the leaves of the trees in the courtyard, he remembered the poem he had studied in class before being pulled in by a water bomb he received in the face…

"People who have survived the war don’t like to talk about it," the teacher had said.

And Yuuri wondered about it. True enough, he never had heard anything about the war from Conrad or Yosak, or Gwendal or… he had had to ask Gisela to get an answer, and even then, she hadn’t said much.

Just then Yosak passed under the window, and Yuuri shouted him to a halt and rushed downstairs to ask him.

"About the war, Heika ?" Yosak frowned. What could have brought this to the mind of the peace-loving king ?

And in order to explain better what he meant, Yuuri quoted the poem to the soldier.

 _"Halted against the shade of a last hill,_  
_They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease_  
 _And, finding comfortable chests and knees_  
 _Carelessly slept. But many there stood still_  
 _To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,_  
 _Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.(…)"_

And, lulled by the king’s voice, Yosak found his mind drifting back to the hills going to Ruthenberg: they had known back then that they wouldn’t come back. He shuddered remembering the faces of the others, all dead by now. Only he and Conrad had lived on, and it might as well have been a miracle.

 

"Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word  
At which each body and its soul begird  
And tighten them for battle.(…)"

" Let’s go ! " Conrad had shouted, and it had been chaos.

" _Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced  
The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done(…)" _

Snapping back to reality, Yosak smirked at the blushing boy, who was only too aware he always was being compared to the sun, and not least of all by Conrad. Yuuri’s face went even redder.

Shaking his head, he went back to the poem. The declamation had been interrupted and Yuuri stumbled on the next few verses as he tried to get the thread back.

" _Of them who running on that last high place_  
_Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up_  
 _On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge,_  
 _Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge,_  
 _Some say God caught them even before they fell. (…)"_

But the charm had been broken, and Yosak was very much in the present now. The remembrance was not as sharp, the smell of blood and burning flesh not as pungent in his nose. He was there, looking a bit distractedly at the young boy who spoke of dreadful happenings, and tried to lighten his thoughts a bit.   
  
_"But what say such as from existence' brink_  
 _Ventured but drave too swift to sink._  
 _The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,_  
 _And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames "_  
 _With superhuman inhumanities_ ,"   
  
Yosak chuckled at that; they had been the demons! Half-blood, but still representing Shin Makoku. And they most certainly weren’t fully human.  
  
_" Long-famous glories, immemorial shames --"_  
   
Glories, glories… people only remembered Conrad, Ruthenberg’s lion. Who still remembered he was the other one to survive? The only other one?

_"And crawling slowly back, have by degrees  
Regained cool peaceful air in wonder --" _

Yes, it had been a wonder they had come through all that alive.

_"What do they say of comrades that went under?"_

_"_ Eh?" Yosak had been surprised by the brutal ending of the poem, and so he answered naturally to the question. "Oh so that’s what you wanted to know! He’s a stupid captain, that’s all. Brave and kind hearted, but still an idiot."

Yuuri stared wide eyed at him.

Then Yosak realised something. "Hey! Wait a minute! How did you know he was under?" He asked.

Yuuri fled.

 

 

 


End file.
